Sleeves are used in the floral industry to package floral groupings for shipment between growers and retail outlets and also at retail outlets for packaging goods for sale to retail customers. Floral groupings include pot plants, bouquets and similar materials. Sleeves for floral groupings come in a variety of sizes and shapes, and generally are tapered or frusto-conical to hold a pot plant or bouquet. The sleeves may have open bottoms or closed bottoms.
Sleeves of this sort have been made from webs of thermoplastic material. In a conventional sleeves making machine, the web is folded to form two layers (or two separate webs may be provided) and fed incrementally through a machine which cuts and fuses the edges of each sleeve with a hot knife.
In sleeves of this sort it is important that the seals along the edges be strong. Past attempts to make such sleeves from two layers of non-woven, thermoplastic fabric have resulted in seals that were not satisfactory. Neither a grower nor a customer wants a pot plant to fall through the bottom of the sleeve because the seals at the sleeve's side edges were insufficiently strong.